Hello Hampi

I left Mysore with a friend named Trisha. She is also from the U.S. and though she has lived in Japan for the last 5 years, and originates from a little town somewhere in Pennsylvania, we talk just the same. Ah, shared culture. She may have been tossing beer cans into a empty barn every weekend through high school, while I was dancing in black lace at clubs in LA, but we have managed to both come through pretty satisfactorily with a definitive, educated American accent. I have come to learn that this means we are articulate, but we throw in "y'know" at the end of our brilliant statements.

We took an overnight train to Hampi from Bangalore. The first day here, we decided to see as many ruins as our bodies would allow. The heat is dry and dusty here; it clogs my eyes, nose and throat a bit, but luckily, my sweat seems to cut through it well enough to allow me to maintain respiration. Hampi is known for its amazing ruins nestled among building-size boulders that bulge though the red dirt and support stacks of additional, precariously balanced boulders on their round surfaces. Hampi was a bustling marketplace from around 1300 to 1550, when Muslim raiders trashed the place. The entire city is a World Heritage Site.

We took a guide along with us as we trudged over hills and piles of rocks to find the next amazing temple or kitchen hall or palace. He was only 18, and clearly had not experienced the full impact of guiding two American women before. When we declined to pay for a rickshaw driver who wanted more than the price of our night's accommodation to take us 2 kilometers, he simply bowed his head. I thought he might cry when we asked why we had to pay MORE money to some guy who just kept bossing us around as we tried to wander through a beautiful building where every stone pillar has a certain amount of iron within allowing the pillars to be played like musical instruments. Okay, the man had some interesting information and he knew how to beat every pillar, beautifully. He said that 167 musicians would play the pillars at the same time, immitating the sound of an orchestra. But after all this information, he just got pushy. And aside from the facts, the only English phrase he seemed to know was "please come inside." That was the only thing he could say if we wandered off, or stopped paying attention, or wanted to take a picture. "Please come inside." I told him I didn't want to.

Yesterday, we rode bikes on the other side of a marvelous river to find the Hanuman Temple. Hanuman is the Monkey God, son of Arjuna, who is the Goddess of Air and Wind. The temple is 612 steps up a boulder hill. On the way up, pilgrims call out and laugh and use their hands on the stairs to make it a little easier and quicker to ascend. Those higher up will respond to them. At the top of the hill, we met a little boy who gave us flowers and showed us the view. We had to avoid monkeys at every turn. When the boy asked for a present, and then declined my offering of a book, I had no choice but to part with my chocolate bar. He was very, very happy about that gift.

Today, I take the train to Mumbai. I am hoping to avoid a 7 hour wait in a station called Guntakal. If I wait, I wait until 3 in the morning. If I don't wait, I will be on the train by 7 this evening, and into Mumbai by tomorrow afternoon.